NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/sci/physics/18487

Text File | 1992-11-09 | 5.7 KB | 129 lines

Newsgroups: sci.physics
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!uvaarpa!murdoch!kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU!crb7q
From: [e-mail] (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: Religion & Physics Don't Mix
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: University of Virginia
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 10:00:28 GMT
Lines: 117

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>>>Its negative results towards religion are due only to the
>>>fact that its positive results towards the physical world
>>>disprove the mystical world's ability to affect the
>>>physical world (except perhaps through the action of those
>>>who maintain faith and expand "holy signs" into action, but
>>>I have little doubt that the science of psychology would
>>>explain these episodes, as well).
>>
>>     They do nothing of the sort.  You cannot offer proof that the
>>     universe did not start from initial conditions set up by
>>     God, 3 1/2 seconds ago.
>
>And you can offer neither proof that it did, nor proof of
>any resemblance to a probability that it did.  I have my
>memory and a continuous model of consciousness which tells
>me that 3 1/2 seconds ago I was trying to figure out who
>wrote your article.

     Didn't say I could.  In much the same way, you cannot offer
     'proof' that science 'disproves' God or his ability to affect
     the physical world.  You can never even disprove this one case.
     I suppose that your assent to my premise means
     that you now agree that you can never disprove God within science.

>When I was a very young metaphysician, with more emotional
...
>
>Since I determined that gods do not exist, I've found at
>least mental health, if not a heightened spirituality and a
>rather elegant ideal of consciousness and the purpose of a
>productive, proactive life.

     Bully for you.  What do your psychological processes have
     have to do with science disproving God?  Are you suggesting that
     if repeatedly stabbing himself in the abdomen provides some individual
     a modicum of mental health and a productive life, we should all do
     it?

>Paradoxical models of existence of the sort you propose
>roll off my back as so many single-digit addition
>problems.  All efforts to find evidence or a rationale for
>faith in a non-evidentiary creator are proven to be simply
>a waste of valuable time.  (What we have in this thread,
>however, is an opportunity to educate, and that's never a
>waste of time.)

     Maybe a waste of time to you, certainly a waste of time within
     science, not a waste of time for certain people elsewhere.

     It befuddles me why you'd insist science could do such things
     and then call it 'a waste of valuable time'.  If science can
     investigate such things, the determination of which is extremely
     important to very large numbers of people, why should we not
     bring miracles and omnipotence and omniscience into science?
     It would eliminate that nasty and inconvenient 'falsifiability'.

     By the way, faith pretty much denies rationale.

>>>Morality is a matter of psychology; desire and temperament
>>>make a great force for personality, and the availability of
>>>productive opportunities can forestall selfish tendencies.
>>
>>     Rather mechanistic view of morality, wouldn't you say?
>
>It's far more pleasurable than the tyrannical one that the
>churches espouse.  I'd rather form my ethics from the forces
>in my environment than from the disputations of people that
>I know couldn't out-think me (very few capable brains enter
>the clergy, any more) and who use the threat of eternal
>damnation to enforce their ideas of what my morality should
>avoid.

     You haven't been talking to clergy much, have you?
     Faith and morality are very comfortable domains for most of
     them.  It's not like they haven't heard this before, and
     'Truth is science' is not very difficult to shread.  Next time
     you're in New York, drop by a rabinnical school.  With thousands of
     years of dithering around with these same questions, I'm sure
     they'd be happy to set you straight.

     Never having been particularly religious myself, you are being let off
     easy  since I cannot make some of the most forceful arguments while
     keeping a straight face. Nevertheless, without the restrictions of
     science, logic is no shield.

     (And the best flocks are led, not pushed.)

[discussion of religion deleted]

>>     totalitarian dictatorships the world has ever known.  I don't
>>     consider that a blanket indictment of Economics.
>
>Granted.  I don't eschew all of the things that religion
>has ever attempted; I just don't like their reasoning, and
>on the face of it I don't trust their method.

     So, all economists are Lenin?  Are all scientists Mengele?
     For extra credit, using your newly found 'scientific ethics' show why what
     Mengele did was wrong.  'Environmental forces' do not seem to
     be sufficient.

>But then, very few economists actually believe in unseen
>hands.

     Actually, pretty much all of them do.  It's a mighty nice
     picture.

                            dale bass

--
C. R. Bass                                          [e-mail]
Department of Mechanical,
     Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering
University of Virginia                              [phone]